Best Friends
by Mysteriol
Summary: postGREV, ONESHOT. Tala is the last person Kai would ever call a best friend.


beyblade

kai, tala friendship.

apply standard beyblade disclaimer here.

BEST FRIENDS;

Tala is the last person Kai would call a best friend. -- friendship fic

-

Kai scoffs at the idea of _best friends. _

Yup, he knows they exist. Especially in forms of two peas in pods of which said examples can be 1) Tyson and Kenny 2) Ray and Lee and some others he refuse to acknowledge their dual existences. He thinks, best friends are s_cary. _To have a best friend means serious implications, for you, and that person. But mostly, just for Kai Hiwatari alone. Because best friends require a hell lot of commitment (spending time and building old bonds together count as a burden to which little time he has left for other...more productive things), loads of patience (just because best friends have the tendency to utter bullshit and sputter them in strings from their mouths, and Kai doesn't want to grin, and bear with it all the time), and tons of loyalty (to save your best friend's ass when he's nearly to be preyed on like a deer from those bullies around the place, and then getting one's own ass kicked in return).

Kai considers himself seriously lacking in all three departments.

He's way too anti-social to ever tie himself down with someone. Commitment tests his endurance for nonsense (coming from someone who's betrayed his team twice), and he's the last person around who can be said to produce bouts of fierce patroism and passion for a said something. (Just ask Tyson.) And if anyone's going to ever pollute his brains with verbal garbage, he'd be sure they'd be the first one he'd sent flying down the rubbish chute.

In other words, _Kai _and _best friends _do not sit well in a sentence.

He moves too fast, like lightning, and Dranzer. Friends don't walk beside or before him, they plague him and worship the path of his footsteps. (They're called acquaintances actually, on second thoughts.) These a_cquaintances _only want his filthy rich money, his materialistic friendship that the hell he'd offer them, and only to get in his good books so he'd teach them how to make their bit beast strong like Dranzer. (Almost, just as much. Nobody can ever be like Dranzer. He dares them to even try.) In other words, he's like the untouchable wind, that kite which flies up way before hands try to tug the strings back in. It's impossible, anyway. He's Kai Hiwatari, otherwise the renowned I-don't-give-a-damn-Voltaire's-grandson whose bad-ass attitude rivals that of Tyson's dark side times five.

So they're often which times, when Kai looks up to the sky, and vaguely wonders if he's missing something _important _or _precious _that feels as if it (at least, he thinks it's an _it) _used to be there, but now, has simply drilled a hole into his heart, because when he takes his place beside the fence overlooking the entire scenery of the town and catches sight of the horizon, Kai wonders if he's suddenly unaccustomed to loneliness. But it's a strange concept, because he's been alone forever. He's happy to establish himself into the position of man against the world, the one who shuns social interaction, and the one forever brandished by the media as 'a traitor', a 'lost cause of a social person', and a 'hopeless social pariah'. Yeah, he gets used to all these names eventually, but if that's true, he doesn't know why being put in such a bad limelight still provides him hordes of fangirls everyday enough to drive him teetering on the brink of insanity and back.

(He blames the stupid media, and decides he _should _consider his _stupid teammate _going by the name of some random Tala Ivanov – who the hell has such a weird name like TA-LA anyway? – and his suggestion for hijacking the media company.

"Maybe even assasinate a few of the top heads once we infilitrate into the building." The redhead pointed out.

"Yea, and we'd be thrown into jail. And become terrorists for our whole lives." Kai replied sarcastically, and resisted the urge to summon Dranzer to burn Tala's ass the color of his hair. "I'm sure that'd work, Mr. Smarty pants who thinks he's so smart—"

In three seconds, Tala has nailed Kai to the ground in a full-blown throttle, and the two spent the next five minutes wrestling each other until Ian came in and emptied the bucket full of ice water on them. Then all Kai remembers later is Tala's hair strands (the famous two tendrils in front of his eyes) being flipped to the side – that always implied a hazardous threat that Kai would always be glad _never _to get in the way once Tala's mood of explosives was unleashed, and then the tables were turned and both him a_nd _the team captain teaming up to strangle Ian.

Kai likes the idea of him and Tala being extremely compatible tag-team partners with the ability to kick asses to the moon once they teamed up, and actually _not f_ight. (But they always do anyway, and maybe that was why they lost in beybade tournaments sometimes once one of them started insulting each other, and it becomes a downhill snowball from there.)

Speaking of Tala, and _best friends, _Kai still can't get over the fact he was actually shown the newspaper clipping (thrown smacked right into his face courtesy of Ian one sunny morning) labelling him and Tala as 'the best of friends who went through trials and tribulations together despite betrayals and one sent to the hospital in a comatose state'. He's going to kill the media company, the same one that Tala has already blacklisted, and he thinks they'll be hijacking it the next week on the Friday 13th. (If Tala and him don't end up fighting their way with black masks around their faces disguising as terrorists, that is.)

The day he and Tala actually gets chummy and sweet-talking with each other like _best friends, _is the day Kai _will _jump out of the window and actually...well, fly. And Tala will have a chicken nesting in his hair.

(Kai hates Tala's insult of Dranzer as a chicken. "And yours is a stupid dog." He'd tell Tala about Wolborg. Add another five minutes of strangling each other and seeing who kills who first until Spencer has to break them up with a hammer ((he was repairing the TV, which was spoilt again because Ian and Bryan was competing to see who was winning in Dead or Alive 3 and Ian cheated...and, well, it was a long story Kai didn't want to know.))

Kai thinks about it for a long time, in his usual stance of crossing his arms, trademark 'hn' eliciting from his lips, eyes closed, and scarf ends extending beyond his silhoutte under the sun, and comes to a conclusion after the first star begins to peek out that 1) he thinks thinking of Tala at such an inopportune time when he is brooding on the theme and topic of best friends is stupid and very, very annoying (well, maybe not as annoying as when Tyson bugs him to another beyblade fight and loses...again. So what's new?) 2) that he'll never get a best friend, not in his entire life, because he _is _Kai Hiwatari, and he has an anti-social reputation to uphold and that 3) he'll have to strangle Tala soon for being half an hour late for their meeting here at the fence overseeing the entire sight of the town and 4) --

"Yo, blue head."

Kai seethes, and his eyebrow arches.

He opens one eye, and his radar alerts hiim to the presence of the red head.

"Tala." He grinds with his teeth. "You're late."

Like it wasn't obvious enough.

"Ttch. Ian broke the microwave oven."

That explains it.

"What is it this time? A wrestling match?" He asked sarcastically.

"No. It involved..." Tala paused and thought about it. "A potato soup, Bryan's nunchakus and Spencer's repair-the-TV-hammer."

Kai did _not _want to hear about it. Especially involving Bryan and his _nunchakus. _(The hell did that gray-haired guy possess nunchakus for!?)

"Anyway, I bought ice cream for you, and me." Tala scratched his head with a sheepish smirk. "You know, just in case you decide to kill me or anything."

"Hn, I intend to."

"Rrrrright." He rolled his eyes as he handed the ice cream cone to Kai, who accepted it with a begrudging stare.

"What's this?"

"Flavor? Chocolate mint. You like it."

"The hell you'd know."

Tala threw his friend a sideway look. "The hell I know. I've been with you for like...what, seven years? To know that such an icy and irritating prick like you would like chocolate mint. Plus, you told me that when we were like 8, sneaking out of the abbey behind Boris' back to get some ice cream from that ice cream man with that colorful weird cart—"

"You talk too much. Zip it, Tala." Kai interrupted, closing his eyes. The smirk-smile-whatever on his face was unmistakable. Of course he remembered. And Tala had been so _bloody _annoying (he'd be surprised if he wasn't) and insistent on climbing the abbey walls to get his _corn-flavored _ice cream. Who the hell likes corn-flavored ice cream, anyway?

"_The ice cream man back there sells corn-flavored ice cream. I'm sure of it, Kai. We've got to get it, no matter what! C'mon, don't be such a chicken like Dranzer. Let's go!" _

"_I'm not a CHICKEN and so isn't Dranzer—Tala, you are dead." Kai deadpanned as Tala pulled him out of the abbey, scaling up the walls towards the ice cream man ringing his bell behind. _

"Tch, fine, Kai. Don't say I didn't warn you. Your ice cream's melting." Tala remarked.

"Hn."

The two fell into companionable silence for a while, comfortable to simply standing there with backs against the fence overlooking the town and tasting their ice cream as droplets and droplets melted onto their fingers under the evening sun. The theme of 'best friends' and 'I don't give a damn about it' filtered back into Kai's mind, until Tala interrupted his train of thoughts.

"Hey, let me try that." He apparently finished his corn-flavored scoop.

Kai tugged his ice cream cone away. "The hell you will." He snarled. _It's mine, Ivanov, get away from me. _

"I bought it for you. I deserve to taste it." Blue eyes lit up like fire.

"You don't even like chocolate mint."

"Che, can't I even try?" He huffed. "I'm bloody hungry, and Ian isn't going to start cooking until 8pm. I'd starve until then."

"Then starve." Kai rolled his eyes, and was about to taste his ice cream until Tala elbowed him.

"One try." He insisted.

"No."

Another elbow to the rib.

_Best friends who went through trials and tribulations. Unflappable duo, dynamic two, ultra-super-cool-awesome-tag-team-partners, the best pair ever. _Names and labels the media and newspapers and videos on TV had brandished them were aplenty, and they now run through Kai's head like a noisy train. He ignores them. He hates people (he doesn't get them), scoffs at the idea of best friends (no frickin' way he will ever tie himself down), and he is a total anti-social freak in his own entirety, and damn proud of it.

"C'mon Kai. I'm hungry."

"Burn, Ivanov."

Another ribbing.

"Tala, if you're going to do that again, I will _kill you._"

Kai hated social contact, and nobody, EVER, invaded his private space. Not even some stupid person by the name of Tala.

_Unflappable duo. _

"Very chummy, Hiwatari." And Tala lunged forward to snatch the ice cream cone out of Kai's way. "That'd teach you." He smirked, and ran off w_ith _the ice cream.

"Ivanov, you are dead." Kai opened _both e_yes, and that usually meant trouble, for anybody. Even team captains who didn't give a rat's ass about some Hiwatari's short fuse exploding.

_Dynamic two. _

"The hell I'd die just because you said so." Tala was taking off and finishing the ice cream fast.

Damn ass, if he was going to finish up the entire chocolate mint ice cream (damn, fine, Kai loved chocolate mint, and had loved it since Tala so nicely introduced him to it "You'd like it, trust me", when they had first sneaked out of the abbey to get some ice cream ((and after that got their asses screwed by Boris and his ugly filthy men and Kai learnt _never _to degrade his intelligence level that low to actually agree with an Ivanov, ever again.) , Tala was seriously asking for it.

_Ultra-super-cool-awesome-tagteam-partners. _

Shut up, brains. Kai told his mind, s_till r_ecalling their conversation awhile ago about best friends, and those stupid newspaper headlines about stupid friendship with some _stupid _people like the one running ahead with the half-melted, half-gone ice cream by now.

"TALA!"

Scarf ends flip in the wind as said owner chased the shoreline after a red head. (A very annoying red head.)

_Best of friends who went through trials and tribulations blah blah blahh. _

Kai didn't give a damn about that anymore. Not best friends, not newspapers, not some stupid media company who messes his mind up with stupid friendship themes that drives him insane, not anything.

They can say what they want about him.

But best friends tie him down, requires to take too much out of him, and that's...that's not what Kai wants. That's not Kai.

"KAI! YOU BASTARD!"

(Kai had lunged out at Tala, and both rolled down the shore with ice cream gone, dematerialized into the sea)

"Tala, you're dead."

"You're going to get it Kai, you're so going to—OW! Not the neck! KAI, LET GO OF ME! I'll kill you!"

--But with Tala, Kai doesn't know how to describe it.

They're not partners. Not guys of the same age. Not even just acquaintances. Or simply teammates.

Not best friends like Ray and Lee. Tyson or Kenny.

But...

(Kai sighs inwardly, and decides he could really give a damn if his anti-social reputation is ruined because of a certain annoying prick of a redhead who destroyed his ice cream.)

Damn. Fine.

It's all different with Tala. (Who doesn't tie him down, who doesn't give a flying fish if Kai has those three qualities of a best friend – commitment, loyalty, patience – or not, who doesn't even care that Kai has betrayed his team twice, left him comatose, hurt his friends and him, caused him to go to hospital and lie there for two weeks, promised to bring him out of the abbey together only to break it, and then treat him like crap seven years down the road after splitting ways for years...)

Yeah, like Tala could even care that about trivial things like best friends, and stuff like that.

Because, well,

They already are. And it doesn't even take a genius, or some stupid random media company to help them figure it out.

(So many years have erased so many memories...and put in some broken promises, betrayals, comatosed state, bandages and memories of hospitals, wrestling matches, ice cream slurping competition, throttle-Ian-matches, see who repairs the TV first challenges, watching soccer together on the sofa then punching each other because one bets against the other and loses, insulting each other's bit beast involving chicken and dogs until one person kicks the other ass and pulls his hair --)

Kai scoffs, inwardly.

_Best friends? _

Hn.

They already are.

And to compare them to Ray and Lee, Tyson and Kenny blah blah, is stupid because, well –

Because they hadn't been through all that crap and shit these two have been through (abbey days, betrayals, stupid handshakes, bloody tagteam battles, kicking each other asses until literal blood came out ((Ian had prepared a first aid box for the friends ever since then. It started when Tala called Kai chicken, and ... well, things spiralled out of control.)), throwing Boris into jail and visiting him two months later to mock and taunt him together until they decided some ice cream was in need to whet their appetites for such a g_reat _day) --

Best friends don't describe them well enough. They've weathered way more than that, far more than any pair of so-called 'we're the best of friends'.

Best friends?

Yeah, and so bloody much more.

**OWARI **

* * *

YATTAAAAA!! (crap i didn't mean to make the fic this long)

AUTHORESS THEREBY JUMPS UP IN GLEE AND RUBS HER FISTS.

Haven't written a kai and tala friendship ficcie in literal ages, and I miss them so bloody damn much.

(forgive the spelling,grammatical errors, linguistic mistakes stuff like that, because it's way too long to beta-read it again and again to perfect it entirely..at least, i ran out of time too. heh. inserts sheepish grin here)

This fic doesn't exactly capture their personalities in the best of light, nor are they both entirely in-character, but 1) I'm rusty, 2) I haven't written a Kai and Tala in LITERAL AGES – I think it's been two years?? – 3) I am overcoming a bloody huge mental writer's block, and writing this thing was as easy as...as easy as... asking me to do a bloody bungee jump from the sky to the ground. I mean it. This has got to be one of the hardest thing to write, and it took a hell lot out of me, emotionally and mentally, precisely because Kai and Tala means alot to me as a friendship pairing, and that this was an important fic to add to my writing days again, and it doesn't help I haven't written in such a long time..

Oh man.

I'm so glad I finished this, and it...really...nearly...killed...me.

- has the urge to commit Seppaku (how the hell do you spell it anyway? bah..details, details) –

Does a headbang instead.

Don't stop spreading the friendship love around in Beyblade, and drop me a review to let me know you're there ;)

Reviews are always, always appreciated like chocolate drops (and kai and tala plushies) from the sky,

authoress-san.


End file.
